AirAsia flight QZ8510: 22 bodies recovered in search operation

Iwan, a grave digger, cleans up the burial site of the first identified victim of the AirAsia flight QZ8501 crash, Hayati Lutfiah Hamid, at Sawo Tratap Islamic cemetery on January 2, 2015 in Surabaya, Indonesia.Robertus Pudyanto/Getty Images

22 bodies have so far been recovered from the AirAsia flight QZ8510 crash.

Eight have been retrieved in Surabaya, 10 in Pangkalan Bun, and four on a rescue ship, according to Indonesian search and rescue operations chief SB Supriyadi.

Around 140 people remain missing since the AirAsia flight from Indonesia crashed into the Java Sea on Sunday, 28 December.

The bodies of Grayson Herbert Linaksita, Kevin Alexander Soetjipto, AirAsia stewardess Khairunnisa Haidar Fauzie, and Hayati Lutfiah Hamid have been identified so far through dental records, fingerprints and medical records, said police. They were all Indonesian.

AirAsia Group CEO Tony Fernandes said he was on his way to Surabaya to accompany the body of stewardess Khairunnisa Haida Fauzi home to Palembang.

Meanwhile bad weather continued to delay the massive recovery operation for the remaining bodies and debris of the Airbus A320 as officials claim it could take a week to find the black box of the aircraft.

In the hunt for the AirAsia plane it was thought a metal structure had been detected, but it turned out to be a false lead and was "possibly a ship which sank" as the search area in the Java Sea is also the graveyard for one of the largest naval conflicts of the Second World War, and old wrecks from battles have occasionally given false leads to modern searches before.